eleven years ago today the u.s. and the world watched in horror as the september eleventh terrorist attacks on folded so in the time that's passed what's changed in america from our loss of freedoms to sacrifice lives r.t.t. questions more. and since nine eleven the u.s. has turned to drone warfare around the globe for the first time president obama is actually talking about his drone policy coming up we'll tell you about the specific criteria he claims the u.s. uses to conduct drone strikes. and two months until the election day here in the u.s. and around the country there's a battle brewing over voter i.d. laws is this an attempt to sway election results we'll find out.

it's tuesday september eleventh five pm in washington d.c. i'm meghan lopez and you're watching r.t. . for three hundred sixty four days a year americans go about their daily lives they pay their bills work the normal nine to five and worry about having enough money for retirement but one day this year this day we stop to remember the extraordinary circumstances that brought us to where we are eleven years ago today on a day very much like this one three thousand men women and children lost their lives in the years that have followed thousands more died in wars and even more were scarred both on and off the battlefield since that fateful day americans have watched as u.s. military plunged into wars the economy tumbled and their rights to privacy were

stripped away for each of us nine eleven symbolizes something very different something very personal but today we want to take a look at the bigger picture we want to know if the actions taken since since nine eleven were too much or just enough and take a look at the toll the past eleven years has taken on all of us to help me do that r.t. correspondent on the stasi a church going to is in the next new york studio with more hey there on a starting off let's talk about the sacrifices that each of us has made over the last eleven years from ramped up t.s.a. to the patriot act was this ramp up justified or was it enough wasn't too little. well megan of course we have to play fair here and say that a certain number of measures were in fact essential to bring into the united states but there have also been a very wide array of measure of measures of course that have been widely criticized throughout the last decade that have been implemented we have to of course keep in mind the cases such as mothers being asked to their own breast milk at airports

to prove that there were no explosives in the milk you know common americans being asked to remove their prosthetic limbs at airports when they go through security americans in their pajamas sitting in a hole reading their e-mails talking on the phone being spied by their own government i'm sure a lot of people in this country say today that some of those measures were in fact a little bit excessive and despite all of those measures on the stuff here actually the t.s.a. has a higher approval ratings than the u.s. congress for instance but that aside i mean are we any safer today the washington post op ed i read today actually points out that george w. bush attended every single critical intelligence threat briefing that that was offered to him while he was in the white house now that's compared to president obama he attended less than half of those of those security meetings in two thousand and eleven and thirty eight percent of those meetings this year in leading

up to today so if he's not attending those security intelligence threat meetings are we any safer. well know that's a good question obama's definitely attended two times less security meetings than george w. bush. we have to keep in mind that throughout the presidency of george bush national security was one of the key cards that he played to stick around and to excuse many of the actions of his administration in particular with barack obama we understand of course that's priorities have shifted we have the wars in iraq and afghanistan blowing out of proportion during his presidency but the key for him is of course whatever's going on at home it's the domestic issues for him of daily lives of americans in terms of the job situation of course the extremely highly the high unemployment americans losing their homes their jobs so of course priorities have shifted and whether or not americans feel safer we don't know we do know of

course that people deal on a daily basis with standing on a street corner or being looked at dozens of cameras at the same time whether this makes people feel safe or just more paranoid is really the question here and on a saucy of this day comes in the middle of a very huge political season but no politicians were invited to speak at ground zero today that much we know attack ads have been taken down from the airwaves at least for today and all seems very hard calm but it's hard not to make this a very political issue v.p. nominee paul ryan voted down the nine eleven first responders bill twice president obama has had the opportunity to tout his foreign policy achievements so you can take the politicians out of the memorials but you can't really remove the politics from the state can you. i think that's true megan basically here is it's really a great irony because probably there is no other event in u.s. history that was politicized as much as september eleventh and in the if we speak

of the consequences of september eleventh and the political foreign action foreign policy actions that the united states government took and the different measures implemented at home it's been politicized experts say to an extent where even last year on the tenth anniversary the began a verse three of the tragedy americans had nine eleven fatigue and this is pretty much been the case absolutely this anniversary as well and the question here is that the excuse for politicians to not show up this time they say oh we don't want to politicize the event too much will definitely politicize whatever they could out of this event and the excuse of trying to let really family members grieve and be left alone while this is something that maybe should have been considered earlier so somewhat of a hypocrisy there and on a sunday if there's just so much ground to cover here i would also want to talk about the fact that you've been covering the first nine eleven responders and their digression over the last few years last year you brought us a story t.j.

gilmartin who spent three hundred hours working at ground zero and had to have long surgery as a result now looks like the james said and nine eleven health and compensation act finally was signed into law back in two thousand and eleven and that was added last night was fifty eight types of cancer so looks like more people are being able to receive the help but i want to know for you what took so long for this kind of compensation to come along megan it's been a decade long battle for the for the first responders for the entire last decade they've been screaming and asking for help and we've seen hundreds of cases of first responders saying they have cancer directly linked to having worked out of the ground. area right after nine eleven and the problem here is that for this entire decade u.s. officials would refuse to establish a direct link between the debris at ground zero and the fact that these men in

their thirty's forty's young men had cancer as a result and now of course finally fifty types of cancer have been added to the list of illnesses that deserve to get financial aid but the problem here is that the bureaucracy will remain the problem here is that eight people are saying there won't be enough money to distribute to everybody and be a lot of the first responders all of them are asked to essentially provide encyclopaedias of proof that they were actually there that the earliest is directed so it's really an insane bureaucratic process and that's why it's been taking so long certainly we will have to wait and see how much of the money actually ends up trickling down to the people who need it and honest us feel we only have about thirty seconds left but i was just wondering if you had kept in contact with any of your nine eleven first responder the people that you interviewed and what what have they been saying about this new development definitely megan we've been monitoring the lives really in the health of several first responders we've of course had

dozens of them on our air and in our reports and for unfortunately for many of them the concerns remain the same many of them are still fighting for their lives for their health many of them are still waiting like we just said to get some sort of financial aid and it's really a very heavy burden on their lives because they say we did this for our country we did this because this was our duty all we want back is a thank you and some respect and some money and it's really sad in most of these cases that these people are largely left to meant for themselves they are in many ways america's heroes and in many ways being forgotten to this day hopefully they'll be able to receive that money soon although reports say that they won't actually start seeing that money until two thousand and thirteen r.t. correspondent out of new york thank you so much. now in the years since president obama took office he changed the way americans fight wars namely with his use of drones to target and kill enemies up until this point he has been silent about this

tactic and his involvement in the decision making process of who to target but last week he opened up about it on c.n.n. obviously as president ultimately i was sponsible for decisions that are made by the administration. but i think what the american people need to know is the seriousness with which we take both the responsibility to keep them safe but also the seriousness with which we take the need for us to abide by our traditions of rule of law and due process president obama said that there is a specific criteria that the u.s. uses to conduct drone strikes it says that a suspected terrorist must be a target that is authorized by us laws must be a threat that is serious and not speculative must be in a situation where we can't capture the individual before they enact a plot against the u.s. must be careful to avoid civilian casualties and u.s.

citizens suspected of terrorism are subject to the protections and the constitution and due process with the recent ramp up of the drone strikes in yemen in the rising number of civilian casualties is the obama administration sticking to that criteria as stringent li as the president says they are purnell douglas macgregor is he's a returning retired u.s. army colonel and also the executive vice president of the burke mcgregor group l.l.c. he joined me just a little bit ago to discuss this very issue. well we've launched i think somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty strikes this year in yemen which is a significant increase over the past i think what's important to understand is that there are legal authorities to justify the use of force against targets overseas who are considered to be enemies of the united states now general michael hayden when he was the cia director said that liberal democracies do not normally wage war on the basis of memoranda locked away in

a safe in the department of justice and he urged more openness but the truth is it's not open we really don't know the quality or the value of the intelligence that were provided and how these targets are selected and that's part of the problem and that is what president obama spoke about a little bit in that c.n.n. interview is that they that he wouldn't confirm his involvement or picking up the targets but to some capacity he is involved now so you also hear it was the taint in what tom obey for a number of years he also went through a saudi rehabilitation institution that's supposed to i want to get this right focus on replacing militant ideology with religious moderation and obviously those methods that and work very well if if we are going to him down a few years later well first of all in fairness to the saudis they have had considerable success with a lot of former al qaida types but the truth is that right now this gentleman and most of his peers that are involved on the sunni islamist radical side of the

equation are really focused on syria right now and most of their focus is really internal to the region you know distinguishing who really represents a threat from who doesn't is a difficult proposition because we tend to regard anyone who seems to be opposed to us as a potential adversary well there are lots of people that fall into that category killing them does it really make any difference what if we didn't kill them would it make any difference we needs are questions that we can't answer we just don't know enough about it but here's an important point for your viewers to understand the reason this continues that is actually increased is because in the eyes of the american people this is a legitimate. and legitimacy is a powerful force americans are convinced that there are large numbers of people out there trying to do us harm and that killing them wherever they show up whether it's pakistan gavan sudan anywhere is justified as long as that perception exists whether this is truly legal it in the actual says makes no difference it will

continue now i ask colonel anthony shaffer last week if these airstrikes are fighting or fostering terrorists and i'd like to get your opinion on that well those of us who have looked at this point out that we continue to kill large numbers of people and we're told that there are still more to be killed so if the idea is that somehow or another you're thinning the ranks it doesn't seem to work in fact you could make a good argument that we're cultivating the emergence of more enemies new cells that are not necessarily brid from some central location in northern pakistan they they pop up as independent franchises again in response to us into the into the perception that we're trying to impose a military political had germany on the region so in that sense i think in many cases these are in fact counterproductive and i also want to take a look at what qualifies as a military target so to start off we need to look at the number of drone strikes in yemen there back in two thousand and two there was only one and i think we have

a graphic to show that there was only one and two thousand and eleven there was ten and then this year there have been thirty three now part of this reason could be that there are even plenty peninsula took advantage of the arab spring to start controlling the south part of yemen and this next part that i want to show you if we can bring that up really fast this is the number of civilian casualties versus militant al-qaeda khalil t. is casualties of militants are in the red so significantly higher but i mean according to the new york times article those who qualify as a militant are quote all military aged males in a strike zone unless there is explicit. intelligence post humorously proving them and it sent so it's all males well it isn't a deal proved guilty and here's another piece of bad news there's a tendency to regard the collateral damage that occurs as the fault of those who are foolish enough to support or be associated with the targets their words if you're providing any sort of sustenance if you're meeting with these people you are

by definition guilty and therefore you deserve to go down with the target in the strike again i think these are counterproductive i don't think that they're working their magic by any stretch of imagination and again the last thousand years of history suggests that if we are less visible in the region and we are less active in this regard that the people that live in the region will turn their attentions to their enemies in the region and not us now laid out a little bit earlier than the five criteria that president obama says that he uses to use these drone strikes to the best of your knowledge is he following us criteria jury is and again this is a judgment call this is you know the president sits at his desk and he's added something by people he trusts who are telling him these people deserve the worst what is he supposed to do how many how much of his day to see devote to systematically examining if you got your lying intelligence to determine whether or not this makes any sense i don't think he's got the time that there are

a lot of people who are supposed to deliberate about this but again you're dealing with the same people now who were there in the last five to ten years of the previous administration they see the world through a lens so they see lots and lots of enemies who deserve to be destroyed whether or not that's justified whether or not that makes any sense particularly at this point in time that's another matter entirely so i don't think the president is lying by any means what he says this is what i'm doing whether or not it's effective you know who else is externally reviewing this and advising it that's the question so just to be very clear for our viewers what you are saying is to. best of the president's knowledge he is following this criteria yes but not necessarily to the best of the military intelligence communities not world with the good you know the same people who are there who were there five or ten years ago there has been no change they see the world in a certain way even if that doesn't necessarily align with reality right let's let's

go back to yemen for a minute the yemeni government's involvement in these airstrikes the pro-forma president ali abdul fully transfer power to his vice president back in february to quell the arab spring on rast so he was very complicit with the u.s. air strikes and his vice president seems to be even more so because more strikes have happened in yemen so is it only the u.s. that is. advocating for these drone strikes to save american lives and kill or enemies in the process or is it yemen as well well there are some other factors at work here the more complex issue first of all there are people who are opposed to the status quo in the middle east many of them may or may not be associated with al qaeda most of them or islamised said at the moment sunni islamists governments that want to stay in power are happy in many cases to see these people vanish so there's a willingness to work with us to see their political opponents if you will people who could be destabilizing vanished from the scene there's another aspect and

that's money if you want to do business with the united states if you want to benefit from foreign aid especially a poor country like yemen then you're predisposed to cooperate with us you're not going to obstruct us because to obstruct us puts you in a very difficult position and very quickly we are just about our time but i do want to ask you if it was up to you what would we do with these drone strikes well i would suspend them immediately unless i. could be persuaded that they were having a positive impact and i just don't see that they are at this point i think we need to suspend the reexamined. reexamined who are killing in the water all right colonel douglas macgregor thank you so much for joining us douglas macgregor is a u.s. retired army colonel and also the executive vice president of mcgregor group l l c with the election well the election is just a little over two months away and we're getting down to the point where a few votes can make a big difference so with that knowledge in mind the battle over voter id laws is

heating up democrats claim that the laws amount to a disenfranchisement of minorities while republicans say that the barrier is not high enough after all they say that a person needs an id to buy alcohol or board a plane so why not show one before voting artes on christine for sound takes a closer look at the state by state rundown of the voter id fight. well eight weeks from now voters across the united states will head to the polls to vote in an election that will determine everything from state and local leaders to who will be president for the next four years in a process known as democracy but leading up to that we have seen a continuing battle rage one fought for what some call reform and others call repression it's been planned for some time now and may manifest itself on election day but right now is taking shape in state capitals and courtrooms across this country but let's first take

a look back at what's happening to the rights of voters in this country in the last two years of fourteen states have passed several measures that restrict voting rights including the days and times polling places there are open new change of address rules and in states like florida and iowa new laws which take away the right to vote completely from convicted felons who have served their time and have returned to society often as employed taxpaying citizens and several of these states in red new laws require all citizens to show a photo i.d. a move that disproportionately affects black and hispanic voters as well as the elderly and the young these fourteen states by the way it represent two thirds of the electoral college votes needed to win the presidency many of them as you can see traditional battleground states where every vote counts even more. last year taxes governor rick perry signed a voter id bill into law a law that not only requires photo i.d.'s at polling places but did not allow

student i.d.'s to be used concealed carry i.d.'s however were just fine here's part of his celebre tori's speech. duty to ensure that it like sins are fair. beyond reproach accurately reflecting the will of the people. that's why voter id is all about. reflecting the will of the people in the room with governor perry and those who look like them may have in fact been to more accurately what the law is all about now brown says why a few weeks ago if three federal judges voted unanimously to block that texas law finding it intentionally discriminatory but there are many more still in the works i'm not going to say it's like ohio and pennsylvania in traditionally democratic districts in ohio hours and polling places were decreased later brought back after a lawsuit by the obama administration that law still may head to the supreme court

now later this week in pennsylvania the state supreme court there is scheduled to hear arguments on the voter id law you may remember a few months back what a republican leader in the state house that voter i.d. which is going to allow governor romney to win the state of pennsylvania done well not quite done actually but we should know more in the days to come with more coming also in states like florida and wisconsin as well. the bottom line here is that these laws are being compared by many to poll taxes and literates literacy test methods used in an era we thought was behind us all these people marching here including dr martin luther king he's in the middle they were fighting for a dream that at least some of them got to see realized in the voting rights act of one thousand nine hundred five when he signed it president lyndon johnson said this most basic right of all was the right to choose your own leaders and that the history of this country in large measure is the history of the expansion of that

right of the people he said this is a history that may be about to begin a new chapter the outcome of which has yet to be determined now i'm not one who ever likes to fear monger but what's happening now has the makings of a perfect storm a disaster that some say could make the results of the november sixth election take a whole lot longer to be determined day job to anyone. we want to bring this to your attention and to make sure this discussion stays in the public eye so that when election day comes there won't be any surprises and christine for sale in washington for our t.v. so what does it mean for all of us come november well to answer just that of with me now is because of all of it as meghan carpentier executive producer or director from the raw story hi there meghan so first question i show my id several times a day to pay for my groceries to get to bars in a certain building so what's wrong with showing your id when you're voting i mean

after all it is a sacred american right. well i think that's the difference it isn't a right to go to are you there isn't a right necessarily to buy groceries unfortunately it is however one of the fundamental rights of this country to vote and unfortunately when you look at some of these voter id laws they they are it isn't as easy to get an id as you might expect because of course some people can't get driver's licenses easy you have to go to the other side of town to two towns away you have to have transportation you have to work you have to go during business hours maybe you can't get the time off because of the job you have or you can't afford to take the time off and then of course if you look at some of the. things you need to do to get an id you have to have a social security card if you don't have a slow security card what do you need to do to get us all security guard you need to have i.d. you or you need a passport for which you need to so scary cart for which you need id to get in the first place and it just it's this result reinforcing cycle that once you don't have one it's very difficult to get one and it sounds like what you're saying is that

right now is just it's taking so much time and are so get them but i also know that you're opposed to it so that's happening before the two thousand and twelve elections would you support the measure of the happen before the twenty sixteen elections to give people that extra time that they need to be able to provide that paperwork. well i think the difficulty is is it's it's not just the ones like people don't have i.d. right now if you look at travel to mexico or travel to canada people in abilities to get passports or qualify to get passports or to take the time the effort and the expense to get passports has actually negatively impacted their ability to go to canada or to go to mexico even in border towns so it isn't just a one time thing this one time people don't have to have ids this is an ongoing problem when i these are a costly and be time consuming to get you know are you going to pass a law in pennsylvania that everybody has to give their employees one day off a year to go good idea or are you just going to assume because most of us in

positions like yours might can take a day off that everybody has that ability when that's actually not the case so are you saying that you don't think that in the next five years it would be up until the twenty six elections that they would be able to get everything together i don't think that everybody can get everything this is the fundamental franchise i mean this is the thing on which our country was founded and we're putting roadblocks in place because we're concerned about something less than five hundred people in the last ten years fraudulent casting a ballot and in the meantime we're going to throw tens of thousands of people off of the rolls in various states and deny them their fundamental franchise because of those four hundred it be like saying ok we're really concerned about mugging dusts we're going to institute a curfew across the saudi as soon as sundown and before sunrise it's an overreaction to what's a relatively small problem that really has the potential to impact the most. poor people the elderly minorities in this country that don't actually have what we

think is something really easy but if you think about it isn't to get and we're going to look like your numbers are a little bit different than mine but one newspaper in minnesota did actually do a study to track voter i.d. fraud they found ten cases over the last decade that's out of one hundred forty six million votes that many cases of were actually conclusively voter i.d. fraud so just to put that in perspective that's one out of fifteen million prospective voters so let's take a look at why the republicans or why the democrats would of want or opposed that can you talk about that well i think what you have is you have a small group like through the vote like some of the tea party folks putting into action these organizations these groups that are trying to get voter i.d. laws passed and what they've they've said is they think you know immigrants are voting they think people are voting that shouldn't be voting they are convinced that there are people holding in multiple jurisdictions and that the government

isn't paying enough attention to it in order to throw a bone to some of these activist groups you have these voter id laws passed which of course you know if you look from a political perspective. the likelihood of throwing out elderly voters minority voters who are go to hers which tend to vote democratic so you have kind of a two for one you get to classify an activist wing of the republican party and be you get to disenfranchise people that are less likely to vote for you meghan it seems like there's a lot to be discussed before the two thousand and twelve elections even more to be discussed before the twenty sixteen elections we're going to have to wait to see how this plays out as christine mentioned in her story just a little bit ago we're also looking at ohio and their extended voting hours so it kind of seems like right now that the elections are very much up in the air and coming down to a bunch of technicalities meghan carpentier executive director from the raw story thank you so much for joining us that's going to do it for.